Kyoto Thanksgiving: Quick Recap

Too tired to write about my entire weekend (which isn't over yet) but some highlights:

- Night bus from Tokyo to Kyoto. Interesting fact, you are assigned seats and the bus is segregated gender-wise.

- Thanksgiving food prep/dinner. Batsu-gemu afterwards. Reed and May and co.'s acting. Rebbecca taking out Toku, etc.

- Kaiten Zushi. Yum. Meeting up with Lisa Gano in Kyoto.

- Kiyomizu-dera at night. Beautiful but WAYYYYYY too crowded.

- Kyoto Shimin Ekiden. FYI, an ekiden is basically a relay marathon. So tiring but very worth it.

Thanksgiving Plans and Dragon Age

Sadly, I have finals on Thanksgiving, so I won't really be celebrating on Thursday. Fortunately, the other Fulbrighter were nice enough to move our Thanksgiving celebration (Fulbright tradition) back one day. We are spending the weekend in Kyoto and I am really excited about meeting everyone again. I fell slightly bad that I won't really be contributing to the feast though. While some others are bringing nice food and stuff, my limited cooking skills mean I will probably be providing money/supermarket food. The good thing about having finals now is that I have a few days off after the weekend (but we have less than a week off between quarters) so I can stay in the Kansai region for a bit longer.

Also finally finished one play-through of Dragon Age. It literally took away one week of my life, sigh. Great game though, and the storyline is more mature than most RPGs. When I play RPGs I tend to go for the "good" choices. In Dragon Age, sometimes there is no "right" choice. Do you support the Prince who basically killed and schemed his brothers on his way to the throne but will be a strong and progressive king who wants to have equality? Or the chancellor who was hand-picked by the king on his deathbed but is conservative, would be a weak king, and supports the caste system? The strong possible tyrant like Caesar or a someone who whose policies will bring about civil war and unrest. In one scenario you can choose whether to destroy an artifact that can basically create super-soldiers, which are very important when your side could be massacred by monsters anything soon. The cost, it takes one life to create one soldier. Will you be pragmatic or the idealistic one? I had a hard time with decisions and while I didn't get to really play the moralistic main character this time I appreciate how the story developed. Not so happy about how much time I spent on it though.

I am glad that RPGs on the computer (non-MMORPG variety) have not completely died out. Computer RPGs were some of my favorite games in my childhood and arguably why I started semi-gaming. Old fashioned single player RPGs are still the best IMO.

Oh, and James, in the game the leader of a gang of slavers was named....Caladrius. I nearly laughed when I saw the name because that would be the last job in the world I expect you to have. I really considered letting him go too but in the end poor Caladrius just had to die for his crimes, haha.

Distractions are bad...

Especially during finals week. What was supposed to be a short study break turned into many hours of gaming. Dragons Age: Origins, curse you! Great game, especially for people who played previous games by Bioware (Baulder's Gate, Neverwinter Nights), but I did not need this distraction. Lucky for me I didn't screw up too badly on my tests.

I just turned on the TV and Ugly Betty is on, dubbed in Japanese. I never watched the show in English but for some reason the dubbed version looks hilarious. I don't think it is the the content, more like the dubbing. I don't really understand everything that is said but the tones and intonations make it sound funny. Not usually a fan of dubs but hey, it might work sometimes.

Swine Flu!

So one of my friends recently contacted swine flu. However, it seems that he contacted it when he was traveling in South Korea (James! It seems like there are legit concerns!). Apparently, Tsukuba is not the healthiest place right now, with over 100 confirmed cases of swine flu among the students. Not really sure how large the school is (and I can't seem to find anything online) but I hear we have the second largest campus in Japan. Either way, I still feel relatively safe right now, but I guess I should be more careful about my health.

Oh, and my friend is fine. He found out relatively early and got treated. From what I hear Japanese are incredibly afraid of the sickness. The student health center wouldn't even let him in after they heard he had a fever and he was quarantined when he went to a clinic. When he went to get his medicine the staff dropped it off in a box before he was able to get it. Pretty crazy, don't get sick.

Welcome Party

Well, last night my research room/zemi (seminar) group finally had a welcome party for me at an izakaya. My professor apologized for having it after I had been in Tsukuba for 2 and a half months but hey, if they want to treat me to a free meal, I'm all for it. Seriously though, it was nice to get to talk to some of the people though. As you guys probably know, I am a shy person around people I am not familiar with, which unfortunately, are most of the Japanese people here. I have weekly conversations with my tutor, but only passing and short conversations with everyone else. Even though I couldn't understand a lot of the conversations that were going on, it was still good practice and I did catch bits and pieces. And really, every talks a lot more after some drinking. I think my professor was going through the details of how he met his wife. Overall, it as pretty nice, and hopefully I will be able to talk to them more often (have some confidence John!!!).

I love Pomona

Not only are all of our transcripts free, they are sending mine to Japan free of charge as well.

Halloween and Futsal

First of all, thanks for everyone who pointed out that my mind went blank for a while when talking about trains. I have no idea why I thought weekend tickets cost more. I should know too because I have taken the Metrolink my fair share of times as well. Disregard that section of my previous post.

Let's see, Halloween was interesting but I did not dress up or go out partying. Instead, a group of friends and I had a hotpot party at my place. I guess that for me, hanging out with friends always beats partying. Then again, there was alcohol, so I guess there have been some changes. The food was delicious and thankfully, no one got drunk. Some people did get tipsy though and we played mafia combined with a batsu gemu (punishment game). The loser, either the caught mafia member or the last villager, would have to wear some cheap Halloween props we bought. Started with schoolgirl braids and went up to wearing pantyhoses on your head. Thankfully, all I had to put on were the schoolgirl braids. There really isn't that much to do in Tsukuba (not that I mind that much) and not surprisingly, people go to Tokyo often.

Another thing that happened is that I finally joined a Japanese circle/club, the Tsukuba Futsal Club! Just for people who don't know, Futsal is indoor, 5-man soccer with a ~basketball court-sized field and a slightly different ball (smaller and less bouncy). I finally had enough courage to go to one of their practices and ask them if I could play with them (even that day, I was by the field for half an hour before I was willing to approach them). I was scared that I would have communication problem but it seems that at least for sports, if you have a general idea of what to do on the field it isn't that bad. It ended up being pretty good too as I met some people who are looking to practice their English so they talk to me in English while I speak in broken Japanese. I do feel embarrassed when they compliment my Japanese though because one, it is definitely broken (it seems that most Japanese people have such low expectations that as long as you can generally understand what is going on they will think your Japanese is great). Second, when everyone keeps on asking you the same questions (where you are from, where you live, your major, how old you are, etc.), you already know how to answer them. I still can't carry on a genuine conversation with any of them.

Well, the sport itself is really fun and everyone is a lot better than I am. I play a lot of futsal when I am in Taiwan but the futsal here is on a completely different level. I kind of wondering why I like futsal so much. One of the main differences between futsal and soccer is that futsal requires a lot more quick thinking and technical skill. Yet, my mine weakness is my technical skill (I feel embarrassed that I can't really juggle a soccer ball at all). Everyone here is extremely skilled and I would not be surprised if most of them have the technical ability play college soccer in the US. Some weren't even part of their school's soccer club in HS. Not sure about their endurance but they all seem pretty fit as well. You can see that from their bodies, which they show when they all change out in the open, haha. I really hope I can improve my skills here though.